Cheney And Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Indicted
For Criminal Conspiracy In Private Prison Profiteering, Resulting
In Prisoner Assaults

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News

WILLACY COUNTY, Texas -- US Vice President Dick Cheney was
indicted today for a prison profiteering scheme and charged with
abuse of prisoners. Cheney invested millions in the Vanguard
Group, an investment management company with interests in the
prison companies in charge of detention centers. Former Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales was also indicted in the prison profiteering
scheme, resulting in ongoing prisoner assaults and at least one
murder.

Human rights activists urged a probe into prison profiteering
after the private prison corporation GEO Group and CCA (Corrections
Corporation of America) began receiving numerous federal contracts
to build detention centers. GEO's new contracts included migrant
prisons in Laredo, Texas and Jena, Louisiana.

Human rights activists said the fever-pitched racism mounted
in the US was induced for the purpose of prison profiteering
by US officials reaping enormous profits. The increased arrests
of migrants resulted in profits and a long list of new prison
construction contracts for the GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut,
both with a long history of assaults and murders in prisons.

A Texas grand jury indicted Cheney today and accused him of
at least misdemeanor assaults of inmates by allowing inmates
to assault fellow inmates. Gonzales was charged with having used
his position to stop investigations into assaults committed in
a prison for profit in Willacy County, Texas. Both Cheney and
Gonzales were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity.

Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted the GEO Group,
on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his
release in 2001. The indictment alleged the GEO Group allowed
other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks
stuffed into socks. The death happened at the Raymondville facility.
A jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million
in a civil judgment in 2006. The Cheney-Gonzales indictment refers
to the de la Rosa case.

Human rights activists protested both Raymondville and Hutto
prisons in southwestern Texas in recent years. At Hutto, migrant
women and children were abused. ICE refused to allow a UN Rapporteur
into Hutto.

During the Bush-Cheney regime, prisons of torture and prisons
for migrants became synonymous with the name GEO, from Guantanamo
to migrant prisons in the south and along the southwest border.

Cheney said Guantanamo was vital in 2005 and detainees could
expect to be treated better here than "by virtually any
other government on the face of the earth."

Geo was awarded a contract for the continued management of
the Migrant Operations Center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Nov.
2, 2006. Recently, GEO received a contract for a migrant prison
in Jena, La. GEO also received a contract for housing "criminal
aliens" in the US, as stated on the GEO website.

GEO's migrant prisons were not restricted to the US. GEO also
assumed a management contract in the Campsfield House Immigration
Removal Center in England.

GEO was not the only one profiteering. The Wackenhut Corp.
was also profiteering from transporting migrants from the border
after their arrests. The two companies split in 2003.

All along the border, while GEO was building prisons, GEO's
other half, Wackenhut Corp., was profiteering from the arrest
of migrants from the borders. The United States Customs and Border
Protection agency entered into the contract with Wackenhut Corp.,
which is now the domestic subsidiary of the U.K.-based security
giant Group 4 Securicor, to transport migrants from the borders.

It comes as no surprise that the Vanguard Group is also currently
a major shareholder in Halliburton, the longtime war profiteer
in Iraq. Cheney's investments in the Vanguard Group are estimated
at between $25 and $86 million, since exact numbers have not
been released.

While the US filled its prisons with migrants, with a price
on their heads, the number of Native American prisoners soared.

The US Department of Justice recently released a study showing
that Native American inmates in Indian country jails increased
by 24 percent between 2004 and 2007. The figures for Native Americans
in all facilities -- tribal, federal and state -- increased 4.5
percent. Suicides, attempted suicides, deaths and escapes were
cited as the result of deteriorating prison conditions.

Human rights activists hope the indictments of Cheney and
Gonzales are the first of many indictments of the Bush-Cheney
administration.

November 19, 2008 -- Reuters (US)

Texas Grand Jury Indicts Cheney, Gonzales Of Crime (Prisoner
Abuse)

HOUSTON (Reuters) -- A grand jury in South Texas indicted
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and former attorney General Alberto
Gonzales on Tuesday for "organized criminal activity"
related to alleged abuse of inmates in private prisons.

The indictment has not been seen by a judge, who could dismiss
it.

The grand jury in Willacy County, in the Rio Grande Valley
near the U.S.-Mexico border, said Cheney is "profiteering
from depriving human beings of their liberty," according
to a copy of the indictment obtained by Reuters.

The indictment cites a "money trail" of Cheney's
ownership in prison-related enterprises including the Vanguard
Group, which owns an interest in private prisons in south Texas.

Former attorney general Gonzales used his position to "stop
the investigations as to the wrong doings" into assaults
in county prisons, the indictment said.

Cheney's office declined comment. "We have not received
any indictments. I can't comment on something we have not received,"
said Cheney's spokeswoman Megan Mitchell.

The indictment, overseen by county District Attorney Juan
Guerra, cites the case of Gregorio De La Rosa, who died on April
26, 2001, inside a private prison in Willacy County.

The grand jury wrote it made its decision "with great
sadness," but said they had no other choice but to indict
Cheney and Gonzales "because we love our country."

Texas is the home state of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Bush and his Republican administration, which first took office
in January 2001, leave the White House on January 20 after the
November presidential elections won by Democrat Barack Obama.
Gonzales was attorney general from 2005 to 2007.

November 19, 2008 -- Associated Press (US)

Cheney, Gonzales Indicted In South Texas County

By Christopher Sherman

McALLEN, Texas (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney and former
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on state
charges involving federal prisons in a South Texas county that
has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles under
the outgoing prosecutor.

The indictment returned Monday has not yet been signed by
the presiding judge, and no action can be taken until that happens.

The seven indictments made public in Willacy County on Tuesday
included one naming state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. and some targeting
public officials connected to District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra's
own legal battles.

Regarding the indictments targeting the public officials,
Guerra said, "the grand jury is the one that made those
decisions, not me."

Guerra himself was under indictment for more than a year and
half until a judge dismissed the indictments last month. Guerra's
tenure ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He
lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March.

Guerra said the prison-related charges against Cheney and
Gonzales are a national issue and experts from across the country
testified to the grand jury.

Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity
related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group,
which holds financial interests in the private prison companies
running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a
conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults"
on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.

Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment
on Tuesday, saying that the vice president had not yet received
a copy of the indictment.

The indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while
in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one
of the privately-run prisons.

Gonzales' attorney, George Terwilliger III, said in a written
statement, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face,
as any good prosecutor can recognize." He said he hoped
Texas authorities would take steps to stop "this abuse of
the criminal justice system."

Another indictment released Tuesday accuses Lucio of profiting
from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management
companies. Guerra announced his intention to investigate Lucio's
prison consulting early last year.

Lucio's attorney, Michael Cowen, released a scathing statement
accusing Guerra of settling political scores in his final weeks
in office.

"Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing
wrong," Cowen said, adding that he would file a motion to
quash the indictment this week.

Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state
and federal lockups. Guerra has gone after the prison-politician
nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy
and Webb county commissioners after investigating bribery related
to federal prison contacts.

Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group,
a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death
of a prisoner days before his release. The three-count indictment
alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio
de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The
death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility.

In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family
$47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzales indictment
makes reference to the de la Rosa case.

None of the indictments released Tuesday had been signed by
Presiding Judge Manuel Banales of the Fifth Administrative Judicial
Region.

Last month, Banales dismissed indictments that charged Guerra
with extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office
for personal business. An appeals court had earlier ruled that
a special prosecutor was improperly appointed to investigate
Guerra.

After Guerra's office was raided as part of the investigation
early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed
camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened
to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement
had aided the investigation against him.

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